This invention relates to test apparatus, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for testing optical performance characteristics of fiber optic cable assemblies and components.
Fiber optic technology is a relatively new art in which interest has been given great impetus recently, particularly for military applications. Under these circumstances, as is usually the case, little has been done to establish accurate performance criteria for the various fiber optic assemblies that are being designed to be used in various system applications. The term assemblies, as used herein, is intended to include individual components, i.e. fiber optic cables per se and their combination for in-line separable connectors or permanent splice connectors, optical couplers, and terminals, etc. Test methods currently employed require very stable light sources, and very stable optical detectors to eliminate the measurement drift associated with performing optical measurements over fairly long intervals of time between measurements. Drift-free optical sources are usually a laboratory tool and not suitable for different types of test measurement, and for the most part are difficult to maintain. Also, such prior art methods are manual in operation, cumbersome to use, time consuming, do not have automatic read-out, and do not possess recording capability.